15 Für 15 : Schule

Today we hitched a free ride to the Nigerian church run by a really nice couple and I actually do enjoy the preaching but they are a bit old fashioned and do a few things I do not agree with….but that’s just moi.

However, the members are a nice bunch and quite close knit. I get fascinated by the kids who speak fluent German and keep wondering when I would get confident enough to speak so fluently.

Now there’s a young girl who just graduated from school and I approached her to ask if she would be willing to talk about her general experience attending a German institute as an immigrant as I had talked in an earlier post about interviewing foreigners that have fully integrated.

Well she declined but was open to sharing a few tips which wasn’t what I wanted as I already know what I need to do. At least I think I do. One of my class mates told me how she went to the Arbeitsamt to inquire about getting a job and enrolling for an Ausbildung. The person who spoke to her basically told her to get her B1 language certificate then she can reschedule for another appointment where all her questions would be answered.

So I had planned to just end at B1 then pick up the rest along the way. Then I hear you need B2 certificate to enroll for an Ausbildung. So I just might go on with B2.

However, the girl wasn’t open to talking about her experience even as I promised not to put up her pictures and only gave me a few tips. I wanted her to talk about the complete schooling experience, how she handled it, what obstacles she faced, what quick word she would give to another person with plans to get educated in Germany as a foreigner.

She did say she only used her B1 which means (from her words) that your requirements only depends on what exactly you want to study. She studied a course called Altenpflege which is basically like working as a nurse and looking after old people. She made an appointment with the Arbeitsamt and got the list of everything she needed. Apparently she only needed her secondary school certificate (I hope this is right cos she said school cert: which I think is a short form of saying SSC) and her B1 language certificate.

She got her SSC evaluated to the Deutsch standard and began her three years course. She was quite lucky to get a job less than one week after she graduated as it seems to be a job in high demand. She did talk about struggling with the language cos even with her B1 she still wasn’t speaking German as perfectly as she understood it and once or twice thought about giving up(this is why I needed her to talk a bit more…that personal experience) and as is always said, real life experience with the language is a whole lot more better than classroom hours. Which is so very true. I get so embarrassed to speak and Gorgeousness always encourages me saying people will help out.

I am certain that Altenpflege is a course I do not want to study. Aside from the odd hours which doesn’t give you time for anything and errrm I am not giving up my precious weekends with Gorgeousness for whatever reason, I’m not open to administering injections or Impfung or giving drugs to anyone: young, old, gay, straight, freaking pets too. I am not doing that. So I will have to decide what I want to do and how to do it. I’m leaning towards online(will just need to be certain its agreeable with German standards).

It’s quite sad tho, that I was unable to get my transcript from the university I attended in Nigeria but that’s certainly not stopping me. If plan A doesn’t work you edit it abi?